Actions speak louder than words

By Korea.net Honorary Reporter Aigerim Sadykova

Photos = Kang Sergei

Korea.net has launched a new collaborative project with its honorary reporters around the world. Each honorary reporter will write a story on the same topic, but from each of their own home cities or countries. The stories will then be shared with our community of Korea.net readers.

For the first subject in the series, Korea.net asked our honorary reporters to send in a touching story from their home communities. Here's our 18th story in this series, this time from Kazakhstan. 

"Actions speak louder than words," as the saying goes. Recently, I had a chance to get acquainted with a person who is characterized by these words. Kang Sergei (강 세르게이) is the father of three children and the supporter of his family. He is also an excellent organizer and an enthusiastic man with a good sense of humor.

Kang Sergei and his family pose for a photo. 

He is glad to talk about his children and about the importance of family values, which are imbedded in both the Korean and Kazakh people. With pride he talks about the achievements of his life, the taekwondo club Arlan. In 2015, Sergei, together with his wife Julia, created the Children and Youth Sports Club TDK Arlan in Astana, the capital. From the Kazakh language, the word Arlan translates a "wolf," so the club has the logo of a gray wolf.

Kang Sergei runs a small gym that teaches taekowndo in Astana. 

The inspiration for the gym was Kang’s son, Maxim.  As an ethnic Korean Kazakhstani, Sergei chose taekwondo for his son. At the age of seven, Maxim started practicing taekwondo. Now, the 12-year-old Maxim is a master of sports and participates in all kinds of competitions and receives diplomas and medals.

In 2015, Sergei understood that it was time to create his own gym in order to support his son. Friends whose children also practice taekwondo gave Sergei the chance to start a good deed. Sergei began preparing the official documents and searched for a suitable place to rent. If you ask what difficulties he encountered, Sergei’s answer is, "There were no difficulties." Frankly, it was a great challenge to start everything from scratch, to find like-minded people, professional taekwondo trainers and to get recognition from the Kazakhstan Taekwondo Federation (WTF).  Moreover, he has successfully continued his business for one year and four months, training 60 children. 

A trainer of the Arlan taekwondo gym coaches his students. 

It seemed difficult to find a spacious room for training. However, luckily there was an empty cellar in Sergei’s apartment building. He reached an agreement with the owner of the apartment, agreeing to a single condition: to do the renovations himself.

"I personally painted the walls," Sergei said with a laugh, mentioning collecting money with his friends. 

Children learn not only taekwondo but also family values at the taekwondo gym. 

Even if Sergei isn't very good at taekwondo, he began to understand the sport. The network of karate is well-developed in Kazakhstan, he said, but taekwondo is only developing. According to Sergei, generally the trainers there control taekwondo classes. However, a good coach on rare occasions can be a good marketing manager. Sergei believes that the main advantage of their gym Arlan is that parents control it. This is not a source of income for the parents. It's a desire to develop their children. Under these circumstances, the coaches focus on the training only. 

Kang also said, "You can’t earn money in sports. People like me live with enthusiasm. I've met good people since our gym opened. I know many people, and they respect my family. Since I have a basic salary, the gym Arlan is my hobby.” Actually, Sergei’s occupation is in medicine and pharmacology. 

The gold medal winner, Damira (left), and Raiymbek, a participant in the competition, take part in the Mayor's Cup in Astana in 2016. They are Arlan’s pride.

Sergei shared his plans. He wants to develop Arlan as a public association with the idea of family leisure. "The children would do taekwondo, while the parents would go to the library that I'm going to open this summer. Grandparents would play chess.” He believes that there's no need to criticize. We must encourage the public to act and to spread family values. He wants children to learn their historical roots, and to develop and move forward.

"I live for children. They make me young. When I retire, I will continue to handle the gym Arlan," said Sergei.

Sergei’s children also practice taekwondo. 

After talking with Sergei, I attended a taekwondo class. I didn’t expect to see such a bright and spacious room full of healthy energy. On the walls, I noticed students’ diplomas and photos, the flags of Korea and Kazakhstan, and a huge poster with the image of the wolf Arlan.  It was nice to see the youngest practicioners at 4- to 6-years-old. The children looked at me with interest and wanted to show me what they had learned. Also, the coach got on well with them. 

Sergei, as a father, along with his wife, watched the training of his second son. Their 2-year-old daughter supported her brother shouting, "Come on, come on!" In one more year, she will follow in the footsteps of her older brothers.

Saying goodbye to Sergei, I clearly remembered his saying  that can relate to everybody. "It's real. It's possible. It works. We did it, after all."

Kang Sergei’s story inspired me and other families who followed his actions. So let’s do what we planned months or years ago and we’ll be successful! 

wisdom117@korea.kr

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